I upgraded from the 4 to a 5. While the 5 has outstanding hardware, I prefer the feel of the 4 much better. At times I wish I would have upgraded to the 4s instead but I convince myself I made the right choice because my hardware will be relevant longer.

You should really see if you can get your hands on both of them side-by-side. (Or use the 4 as a stand-in for the 4S.) The lightness of the 5 is a big plus, and depending on your use, the bigger screen can be very helpful. I find that many web pages that were on the edge of readability on the 4 in landscape are just fine on the 5 in landscape mode. The 5 has other plusses over the previous iPhones, too, but those pretty much cancel out against the higher price.

As for the call quality, it seems the same as before. I'm on a network that should have the better audio codec (which is none of the US ones) but that only works when both ends of the call support it, so I haven't experienced improved quality yet.

This was well covered in a thread from last October. At the time, I was struggling with the same decision since I still prefer the size of the 4/4S over the 5. In the end, however, I got a 5 as a hedge against obsolescence, mostly because of its generous 1GB of system memory. As apps become more complex, I think that will become more of an issue moving forward for all the devices (4, 4S, iPad 2, iPad Mini) that only have 512MB.

My wife has a 4S and, used side-by-side with my 5, I'm hard-pressed to tell any performance differences between the two. They both respond immediately with zero lag in the apps we commonly use (the 5 is, however, *dramatically* more responsive than my 4 was). Call sound quality is excellent on both, we have no complaints. Where the 5 leads is in cellular data speed: ATT lit up its LTE network where we are a few weeks after I upgraded, so I was able to make a direct comparison in the places (like the gym) where I tend to use cellular data often. it's really quite astonishing how LTE makes surfing or using streaming services like GoogleMusic (I don't have iTunesMatch so I can't compare) more pleasant compared to "4G" or plain old 3G. I still think LTE is sort of a goofy feature (who truly needs data speeds that fast on a phone?), but it's a nice luxury to have.

Two things I don't like about my 5 compared to the 4: It really is as fragile a device as they say. I was able to go without a case on my 4 for almost the entire 2+ years I had it and it was as good as new when I sent it to Gazelle.com for resale. Not a scratch, ding, chip, or any appreciable wear and tear. Within a couple weeks of owning it, my 5 already had a bunch of silver dings/scratches along the anodized black aluminum edge and on the back panel, so into a case it went and where it will have to stay if I want to keep it looking nice. Secondly, battery life is noticeably worse. I think I was spoiled by the 4, however, since as a smartphone, it really does have pretty legendary battery life. The 5 is no worse or no better than any modern LTE smartphone: heavy LTE data use will suck the battery dry in a hurry, but even if you don't live in an LTE coverage area, the battery still won't last as long as a 4. It's just a more power-hungry device due to the beefy processor and larger screen.

The final question is how invested you are in 30-pin connectors. I swallowed hard and bought Apple's obnoxiously-priced $29 30-pin-to-Lightining adapter so I could keep using some of my 30-pin cables, but it's still a pain since with two older iPods, two iPads, and an iPhone 4S in the house, my 5 with its Lightning connector is the odd-man-out and I'm always chasing down that adapter or my single Lightning cable that came with the phone when I need to charge.

I find that the call quality is about the same on the 5 as my old 4. One difference is that the 5 has a noise canceling mic on the back, so that helps with call quality somewhat.

I don't really care about the larger screen. Yeah it is nice, but not that much of a difference.

The best thing about the 5 is LTE service. The jump from 3G to LTE is similar to going from a non-Retina display to a Retina display. You will find it hard to go back once you are used to it.

cateye is right about the switch to the lightning connector. It is a pain in the ass to have to buy a $30 adapter to be able to use your old 30 pin cables. Fortunately my wife got a 5 as well, so we at least have two lightning cables around the house.

If you are choosing between a 4S and a 5, I'd get the 5 just so you're hardware will be current for a longer period of time.

The call quality is scary good on iPhone 5. Thanks to the noise cancelling, I've been in crowded restaurants and easily had conversations without raising my voice or cranking the volume at all. It feels like a cone of silence descends around the ear you're holding the phone up to... it's downright eerie at times.

I honestly don't know why this is even a discussion, the call quality is so much obviously better than my iPhone 4, which was pretty darn good already (can't speak for the 4S though, I guess).

As for the size/weight, I keep forgetting I have my iPhone 5 in my front jeans pocket and have to pat it to make sure. This never happened with the 4.

That said, iPhone 4s still look immaculate a couple years later even when used without a case, but I don't think the iPhone 5 will look as great down the road because of the move away from glass to aluminum. This isn't a really important factor for me, but it might be to some.

I upgraded from the 4 to a 5. While the 5 has outstanding hardware, I prefer the feel of the 4 much better. At times I wish I would have upgraded to the 4s instead but I convince myself I made the right choice because my hardware will be relevant longer.

I upgraded from a 4 to a 5. The mic and sound on the 5 to me seem superior. The 5 is on the verge of being too light for me but with a case is fine. I do prefer the earlier screen size better. I honestly can't fathom how people stand those large Android phones. The speed is nice but I think for most apps (i.e. non-games) the iPhone is already at the "good enough" stage.

All that said I think you're better off just going with a 5. I suspect Apple's going to be moving the OS to be more demanding of the CPU and a 5 will likely just last much longer than a 4s.

Regarding durability, without a case your apt to get minor dings on the 5. However with the 4/4s you're apt to smash the back. I know so many people, including myself, who did that. People saying the 4 is more durable are ignoring the high probability of catastrophic failure versus minor cosmetic blemishes. The 4 dinged less but broke much more.

The call quality is scary good on iPhone 5. Thanks to the noise cancelling, I've been in crowded restaurants and easily had conversations without raising my voice or cranking the volume at all. It feels like a cone of silence descends around the ear you're holding the phone up to... it's downright eerie at times.

I honestly don't know why this is even a discussion, the call quality is so much obviously better than my iPhone 4, which was pretty darn good already (can't speak for the 4S though, I guess).

The 4S doesn't do the earpiece noise reduction – the one that makes it easier for you to hear – but it does possibly do a better job of cancelling the outgoing noise from your environmentl (i.e. the stuff the person you're calling hears), according to Anandtech. Apple apparently moved from licensing Audience technology in the 4 and 4S, to their own solution for the 5, which works differently. Still, given the choice, I'd go for the 5's ultra-cool silencing earpiece over making life easier for other people

Secondly, battery life is noticeably worse. I think I was spoiled by the 4, however, since as a smartphone, it really does have pretty legendary battery life. The 5 is no worse or no better than any modern LTE smartphone: heavy LTE data use will suck the battery dry in a hurry, but even if you don't live in an LTE coverage area, the battery still won't last as long as a 4. It's just a more power-hungry device due to the beefy processor and larger screen.

This right here is the one big problem I have with Apple's continuing obsession with thin and light. I have the 4s now and really didn't see any truly compelling reason to upgrade (ended up just getting an unlocked 4s for my wife so we can ride out our AT&T contracts) but I really am fine with the thickness of the 4s. I would prefer to forego shaving off a few more millimeters in favor of keeping (or lengthening) the battery life, especially with the move to LTE. As it is now, with push email, icloud, itunes match, gps and siri, I am hard-pressed to make it through a day on the 4s without needing to plug in.

I still make it to the end of the second day on a charge most of the time with my iPhone 5, like with the iPhone 4, but with somewhat less of a safety margin. I've had it happen once or twice that I was in the red at the end of a particularly iPhone-intense day once or twice, but it's rare.

I've always been curious about how all these reviewers eked out these crazy high numbers on battery life. Like did they actually use their iPhones 5?

Interestingly, I think one of the things that made battery life with the iPhone 5 hard to live with was the scarcity of lightning cables. I realized that I had a ton of 30-pin cables that came with old iPods and what not that I would top my iPhone 4 up with all day. Since I bought a bunch of cheap lightning cables, I haven't had a problem with the iPhone 5's battery life.

Battery life has been pretty awesome for me actually, about the only times I've run it down is playing Need for Speed at night while streaming Bluetooth audio before bed. I've done all nighters at work and still end up with like 30-40% battery left in the morning, used it all day at Disneyland while streaming (apparently inappropriate) Simpsons clips in line for my nephew (if anything I was more worried about data usage), pretty much never have had to think about it other than unfounded paranoia in my case.

And yes LTE is a huge deal, sure it's massive bandwidth, but that ping is what makes it really great (kind of like access times on an SSD being a bigger deal than the data speed). It's basically like having wifi everywhere...well everywhere that you have LTE coverage, so look into coverage maps in your area.

Otherwise for form factor and feel, I like it bare, but it's good with the right case I guess. Ultimately since it's thinner, encasing it can still be about as thick as the iPhone 4 when bare.

And if you use the speaker at all it's definitely louder than the 4 and I think louder than the 4S as well.

Aside from the 'home' button doing my head in, and the slowness of my 4 after 2 years (and the stuttering of any game because it's full up or old? Even my Apps won't upgrade until I delete stuff, and I've deleted enough already from the 16G) I was going to ask you about the battery life

This obsession with lightness, I did pick up in the Apple store, and alongside all the sea of new ip5, there is one solitary 4S. To me it's the same as my 4 for looks and feel, obviously, even if it's a mm out. But, I just don't get the lightness of the 5, I really like the substantial and knowing it's there feeling.

Many times I'm out shopping and it's in my inside pocket, and I pat it, and then that heart sinking feeling when you think it's not there anymore, but then it is. If the 5 is in that same pocket, I want to know it's there. The 4 is hardly heavy, and I like it.

Relevant hardware for longer, is a very good point also and maybe the biggest factor.

Lightning adapters and the fragility of it is another excellent point cateye. And do I want to be lumbered with the 4S for 2 years. The dings you got are interesting to know why and how. Same things on the 4 didn't occur why? The sliver strip? It's on the white version which I wouldn't want anyway, but the sea of black 5s in the store are played with day in day out and they all looked clean. But I do remember that opening day thread of all the nicked corners....

I really miss those 12 month contracts.

I'm guessing the 5 will be updated in a few months, probably.... 5S? I need to do mine before end of Feb though so that's not relevant.

The deals on 4G in UK are awful so that wouldn't play a part in it for me, 500MB gone in a day and I'm on a 1GB a month job. I'm connected to WiFi most of the day anyway. The 3G on mine was very hit and miss, but probably network not the phone.

No price difference in upgrade tariffs... My sound quality was pretty good on 4 and yet my friend has had a lousy 4, and I can never hear them when I talk to them on it. So good to know the 5 is better there.

Thank you all again for your input and incite, You guys really are the best on the WWW for this stuff!! As always...

the slowness of my 4 after 2 years (and the stuttering of any game because it's full up or old?

How full the iPhone's internal Flash memory is has no influence upon its speed.

It's relevant for "regular" computers, because those use the hard drive as extra resource deposits during use (as virtual memory), so a full hard drive will increase access times and slow down the machine.

iOS has no such mechanism; it uses ONLY the available RAM, which is not affected by space concerns on the internal Flash storage.

the slowness of my 4 after 2 years (and the stuttering of any game because it's full up or old?

How full the iPhone's internal Flash memory is has no influence upon its speed.

It's relevant for "regular" computers, because those use the hard drive as extra resource deposits during use (as virtual memory), so a full hard drive will increase access times and slow down the machine.

iOS has no such mechanism; it uses ONLY the available RAM, which is not affected by space concerns on the internal Flash storage.

Thanks, why does it stutter and freeze on so many occasions, I just thought that maybe after a couple of years, that would be the reason why? I wrongly assumed like old laptops even when emptied of space still don't work properly because of age of the hard drive, as you've mentioned

The dings you got are interesting to know why and how. Same things on the 4 didn't occur why? The sliver strip? It's on the white version which I wouldn't want anyway, but the sea of black 5s in the store are played with day in day out and they all looked clean.

The band around the edge of the iPhone 4/4S is made of steel. The band around the edge of the iPhone 5, along with the metal portion of the back, is made of aluminum. Aluminum is lighter, but it's also softer, and malforms from impact more easily. In addition, the aluminum surfaces of the black 5 are anodized with a slate-black color. But that's just a micro-thin layer of color over bare, silver aluminum. The moment it gets scraped off (after spending some time in your pocket with your car keys, for example) it sticks out like a sore thumb since it's these little silver nicks on a field of matte black.

Is it an OMG HUGE DEAL?!?!?!? No, of course not. But if you're a bit OCD like I am, and like your Fancy Expensive Objects™ to stay looking new, you're going to want to put it in a case.

heh. I think it's a rather stunning achievement that Podcasts.app stutters and lags even on the iPhone 5. That requires such focused attention to shitty programming it boggles the mind. It's like QuarkXPress-level shitty. There isn't a phone on the planet with enough horsepower to make that program work as it "should."

So yeah: On a phone like the 4 that doesn't have the same headroom in terms of processor cycles and memory as the 5, poor programming is going to harm usability more acutely.

The dings you got are interesting to know why and how. Same things on the 4 didn't occur why? The sliver strip? It's on the white version which I wouldn't want anyway, but the sea of black 5s in the store are played with day in day out and they all looked clean.

The band around the edge of the iPhone 4/4S is made of steel. The band around the edge of the iPhone 5, along with the metal portion of the back, is made of aluminum. Aluminum is lighter, but it's also softer, and malforms from impact more easily. In addition, the aluminum surfaces of the black 5 are anodized with a slate-black color. But that's just a micro-thin layer of color over bare, silver aluminum. The moment it gets scraped off (after spending some time in your pocket with your car keys, for example) it sticks out like a sore thumb since it's these little silver nicks on a field of matte black.

Is it an OMG HUGE DEAL?!?!?!? No, of course not. But if you're a bit OCD like I am, and like your Fancy Expensive Objects™ to stay looking new, you're going to want to put it in a case.

One thing I will say for their over priced Apple bumpers... they worked, and my 2 year old 4 is in really good condition, even with just the sides covered

If the 5 does mark up, then OCD or not, it's not what you want, and doesn't fill you with much confidence for something that fragile going the 2 year distance.

With regards to the stutters/freeze or whatever it's called... Angry Birds is a great example of that. Not that it's a valid worry of course, but as an example, it frequently glitched and froze on pull back, and has done so on all ios versions for 2 years right up to the ios6

Apparently I dropped my iPhone 5 on the top right corner and now there is a deformity. It was covered by the case. I feel so disgusted now, I am going to go and commit hara kiri...jk.

I figure better that the metal can eat the brunt of the impact rather than the glass. It's a built in bumper

As for my own drop deformity story, I dropped mine from about five feet onto marble without a case and all I have to show for it are two or three tiny deformities. Took me a while to even find one and only saw the other(s) under better lighting.

Susan Harris wrote:

This obsession with lightness, I did pick up in the Apple store, and alongside all the sea of new ip5, there is one solitary 4S. To me it's the same as my 4 for looks and feel, obviously, even if it's a mm out. But, I just don't get the lightness of the 5, I really like the substantial and knowing it's there feeling.

Many times I'm out shopping and it's in my inside pocket, and I pat it, and then that heart sinking feeling when you think it's not there anymore, but then it is. If the 5 is in that same pocket, I want to know it's there. The 4 is hardly heavy, and I like it.

Again, just get a case then. They can basically bulk it up to the thickness and weight of a bare 4, or more so if you want that. Plus you get some protection if you're anal about that.

I migrated from a 4S to a 5 a few months ago when I switched carriers (and thus switched from GSM to CDMA... or whatever they're calling 'em this week), so I've now used both pretty extensively. If I were going to do it again, I'd seriously consider getting a new 4S.

While the 5's better in every way-- lighter, bigger screen, faster wireless performance, etc, no piece of it (with the exception of playing videos on the bigger screen that better matches the videos' aspect ratio) really screams, "Hey! I'm BETTER!" It's a good device. It's certainly a better device. But I'm not sure it was worth the extra money, particularly when I couple the original outlay with the cost of having to replace all the 30-pin devices I'd been using (the big problem being the ANT+ dongle for fitness hardware that I feared wouldn't attach through an adapter very well at all, and my bike rig where it wouldn't physically fit). Sure, I'm going to have to replace all that 30-pin stuff eventually either way, but I probably could have put it off two years.

I don't really regret going ahead and jumping to the 5 now instead of getting a new 4S, and it's very well possible that once iOS 7 rolls around I'll be very glad I did it, but right now, it kinda feels like a wash.

That said, my wife, who's a long-distance hiker and thus worries about grams, is looking forward to being able to drop 30 of them by migrating to an iPhone 5 from her iPhone 4... I suppose it's all in what your priorities are.

My biggest hope, other than battery life, is that Verizon/Apple can get the simultaneous data/phone issue corrected on whatever the next iPhone version is. We were all set to ditch our contracts with AT&T when the 5 came out, but in the end it just wasnt compelling enough to warrant ETFs, which is why I ended up just getting an unlocked 4s for the wife, so she could have voice nav and siri while we waited out our contracts. Since we pay for data on our Verizon iPads, I really just wnat to be able to consolidate all of our devices on one bill (that benefits from my employer discount with Verizon).

If you do opt for the 5, the Photive bumper from Amazon is great. I've always preferred bumpers for cases and it really highlights the thinness of the 5 compared to any other bumpers i've tried for the 5. Mine has taken some spills and has no ill effects from any of them. Cosmetic or otherwise. Only $10 too.

I didnt realize there was anyone who thought the 4S was a better choice. I used a 4S for about a year, it was a great phone. The 5 is a better one. Not in any really dramatic ways (save LTE) but just all around better.

I have a 5 I upgraded to from an old Android phone so I can't compare it to the 4S. I do find that the screen is a little too big, requiring me to stretch my thumb to opposite corners quite a bit (despite my having large hands), and that the Home is less sensitive than my 2nd-gen iPod Touch. Consequently I've gotten some soreness in the muscles between the thumb and index finger, especially from the pressure needed to double-thump the Home button to multitask with multiple apps.

That said, I wouldn't go back to Android. But I might have saved myself some $$ and gotten a 4 or 4S if I could have done it again.

I have a 5 I upgraded to from an old Android phone so I can't compare it to the 4S. I do find that the screen is a little too big, requiring me to stretch my thumb to opposite corners quite a bit (despite my having large hands), and that the Home is less sensitive than my 2nd-gen iPod Touch. Consequently I've gotten some soreness in the muscles between the thumb and index finger, especially from the pressure needed to double-thump the Home button to multitask with multiple apps.

That said, I wouldn't go back to Android. But I might have saved myself some $$ and gotten a 4 or 4S if I could have done it again.

Tried any others to see if your home button might be screwed up?

And I'd avoid a 4 at this point, it's not horrible but it's not exactly holding up too well either.